A record 10 punters showed up at Barrie's this Sunday afternoon for a Wings of Glory WWI air game. Each side had 2 bombers escorted by 3 fighters & a two seater, so 12 planes on the table. There were several bomber targets at near the far side of the table for both sides. VPs were to got by effective bombing of designated targets or by shooting down enemy planes.
We made quite a crowd around the end of one of Barrie's two 12'x6' tables. I'm afraid the picture quality isn't real good as I only had my iphone.
The Germans are coming towards the camera & have maintained a pretty tight formation with 2 escorts for each bomber. The Brits on the other hand are all over the place. Chris has rushed forward & is getting himself Fokkered. Barrie's DH4 went meandering off to the right for no apparent reason. Jim is in his usual Flashman mode, hanging about the rear. Only Mark is actually keeping close to the bombers they are supposed to be protecting.
None of us had any experience in bombers & we found out the hard way that they are damned hard to shoot down & pack a punch. They sailed right past the enemy fighters and went for their targets. Some of the fighters turned to follow them, others seemed to think it safer to go for the enemy fighters.
The bomber pilots now found out how difficult it was to hit a target. JohnW's Allied bombers could do no better than some near misses, but SteveJ, the German bomber commander, got the hang of it with his second run and scored some serious damage. The Allied bombers were badly damaged and one went off table too badly damaged to turn to avoid the table edge but the other fought on after it's ineffectual bombing run. Mark's dedication to attacking the German bombers was rewarded by him being shot down by SteveJ's gunners, but with the allied bomber gunners & fighters picked off the Fokkers one by one - first NickB's, then Jake's, then John's and finally Rusty's Hanover.
In the end the only German plane to escape was one of their bombers - the other bomber being scored by Jim & Chris after Mark had valiantly done the hard work. The Brits lost one fighter & had one bomber leave the field. We decided it was tie as the Brits won the dogfight, while the Germans had much more success with their bombing.
WOG is not a game to take too seriously - the system's far too fickle for that - but it was rattling good fun. It got a bit loud in the crowd at times (hearing aids had to be turned down), but we were learning the rules, not arguing.
1 comment:
Fickle?
I'll say, one minute I am poodling along having spent the last 2 hours pouring bullets into Italian flying brick outhouses to no effect.
Thinking to myself how lucky I am to have brought all that extra ammo and still have a third of my damage left when BANG!
one stray bullet from a passing DH4 hits the pilot in the back of the head and then the plane plummets to earth
5 hits and a crit pilot wound on one 1 B card!
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